Young dads lost, holiday-makers trapped in fire-ravaged towns
The bushfires raging across NSW have claimed a fourth life, with a body found in a burnt-out car near Lake Conjola early today. Three other men, including two young dads expecting children, were the other victims. Emergency crews are still trying to get into isolated communities after a horror 24 hours.
NSW
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Four people have been confirmed dead, one remains missing and paramedics are urgently battling to get into isolated communities where people have suffered burns after a horror 24 hours of raging infernos in NSW.
Police have today confirmed a fourth life has been claimed by bushfires on the south coast, with a man’s body found in a burnt out car on a firetrail a few kilometres off from the highway at Yatte Yattah near Lake Conjola on the south coast.
Police said identifying the victim will take some time due to the condition of the body and the vehicle were in after being caught in a firestorm.
Two of the men killed in the bushfires, who both with babies due, were Samuel McPaul, 28, a RFS volunteer killed by a fire tornado, and Patrick Salway, 29, who died alongside his father Robert, 63, trying to protect the family dairy farm in the Bega Valley town of Cobargo.
An off-duty firefighter is still also missing.
The state has three days to restore power to the south coast which has been left a wasteland by yesterday’s blazes.
Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said their major challenge was to get to the people who had suffered burns in areas where they could not get out for help and help could not get to them.
He said first aid had been administered to them until paramedics could get to them.
A number of people had also been treated by paramedics and presented to hospitals with injuries, he said.
With people in major towns like Batemans Bay on the south coast trapped by road closures and without power, Premier Gladys Berejiklian said restoring essential services was a priority as well as clearing roads and back burning.
She asked people not to panic if they could not immediately contact friends and family.
After three days of milder conditions, Ms Berejiklian said it was bad news for Saturday.
“Were assuming that on Saturday weather conditions will be at least as bad as they were yesterday and that’s something we have to brace ourselves for,” she said.
Thousands last night remained stranded on beaches and in emergency centres along the south coast — and may have to be evacuated by the military — after they fled when fires tore into towns, razing an unknown number of homes.
The fight for life for locals and holiday-makers from the Victorian border to Nowra came in extreme heat not predicted by the weather bureau — which forecast conditions 7C cooler in some places.
Scott Morrison praised dead firefighter Mr McPaul for his selfless bravery and said “the nation is incredibly grateful”.
The PM warned yesterday the fire disaster was far from over.
NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Gary Worboys said the father and son had died in a “very tragic set of circumstances”.
“They were obviously trying to do their best with the fire as it came through in the early hours of the morning,” Mr Worboys said.
Their bodies were found on Tuesday morning by their wife and mother when she returned after evacuating on Monday night.
Patrick’s wife Renee is pregnant with their second child. The couple also have a young son Harley and Renee said the tragedy had left family “broken”.
“I love you now, I love you still, I always have and I always will,” she posted on Facebook. “I will see you again Patrick, my best friend. Hope you are up there “fixing things in the stars tonight” … Love forever Harley & Me. (Thank you everyone for your concern. We are broken).”
Not one coastal town and settlement south of Nowra was unaffected by what RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons called “absolutely” the worst bushfire season on record in NSW.
Last night 100 homes were threatened in the western Sydney suburb of Greystanes after a blaze broke out after a day of 40C-plus temperatures.
As heavy, black, smoke-filled clouds turned day into night, Commissioner Fitzsimmons warned the conditions would worsen with more hot weather in coming days.
Residents and holiday-makers sought shelter from the infernos on beaches from Nowra south over the NSW Victorian border to Bairnsdale. Commissioner Fitzsimmons said they could have to spend the night there because it was too dangerous to evacuate them by water in the dark.
“We have thousands of people up and down the coast taking refuge on the beach,” he said. “It has the potential to be a very difficult and uncomfortable night.”
Others sought refuge in surf clubs and ovals.
Some of the communities were isolated with the only road in and out cut off as 600km of the Princes Highway was closed at various times during the day.
Almost the whole settlement of the fishing village and holiday haven of Lake Conjola, between Nowra and Ulladulla, was wiped out with 40 homes reported to have been destroyed as the Currowan bushfire tore through.
The historic town of Mogo, on the Princes Highway south of Batemans Bay, was devastated but the world famous Mogo Zoo was saved.
Mobile phone towers and landlines were down adding to the chaos.
Apocalyptic scenes with ominous orange skies and billowing smoke clouds descended on Batemans Bay where residents from neighbouring settlements had evacuated to until the fire hit the town’s industrial estate and burned into the southern outskirts of the town.
At least four homes were lost in the town and dozens more destroyed at the coastal settlements south, including Rosedale, Broulee, Barlings Beach, Surf Beach, Malua Bay, Guerilla Bay and Tomakin.
not on duty but is believed to have out defending properties from the out of control Badja Fire.
At lunchtime, bushfire conditions deteriorated as a southerly swept up the coast, pushing the fires ahead of it.
Bermagui resident Dan Bakker said it was a grim morning. “At our town, right near Cobargo, it was black as night, it looked almost like the sun was coming up from the west,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “The whole thing was strange; it felt like there was this onshore wind that was going towards the fires, fuelling them.”
Late yesterday, residents north of Ulladulla, south of Nowra and in Jervis Bay were told it was too late to leave and to seek shelter as the Currowan fire headed their way.
In Victoria, the Australian Defence Force was called in to East Gippsland where four people are missing in blazes that have destroyed homes. Lightning strikes sparked more than a dozen new blazes in Victoria’s alpine region on Tuesday.
There was some good news amid the destruction, with a major fire front passing the coastal town of Mallacoota where 4000 people had sheltered most of the day on the jetty, on the beach and at times in the water wrapped in woollen blankets. However, the community remains isolated.
There were eight emergency level fires burning in NSW last night with a fresh blaze at Charmhaven on the Central Coast. Yesterday’s deaths take this season’s national toll to 13.
NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Gary Worboys urged people to register on the Red Cross website “Register Find Reunite” and said police would contact them.
A public information and inquiry line has also been set up on 1800227228.
Originally published as Young dads lost, holiday-makers trapped in fire-ravaged towns
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